Rain
by xerxia31
Summary: Canon compliant post-mockingjay, pre-epilogue. Just a random morning for Everlark.


I had everything planned to the letter. The picnic basket full of her favourite treats. The bottle of wine borrowed from Haymitch's 'collection'. The chocolate ordered from the Capitol and hidden away from her inquisitive nose. Everything just right.

Everything except the weather.

Katniss is still sleeping, stretched out on her stomach, the sheet tumbled low enough to expose her bare back and just a hint of the swell of her ass. Her raven locks flow over the pillows, glinting blue in the thin morning light. She is the very picture of perfection.

Outside our bedroom window is another matter altogether.

Thick clouds obscure the sun I know should have risen half an hour ago, the trees in the yard bend and creak in the wind. I don't have Katniss's uncanny ability to predict the weather, but even I can tell it's going to rain.

I lay my forehead against the window and sigh. Best laid plans. After everything I've lived through - two trips to the Games, a war, torture - it's ridiculous to be so disappointed over a little rain.

A pair of cool hands slide around my waist and I jump, just slightly. We've been living together more than two years and still her silent footsteps take me by surprise every time. Soft, warm lips caress my shoulder and I can feel some of my tension ebb away.

"What are you doing?" she murmurs, voice husky with sleep, sultry. "Shouldn't you be at work already?" I opened my own bakery six months ago, not far from where my father's stood before the war. Since then, I've been working six or seven days a week, trying to build a business. But not today.

Outside, the heavy clouds start releasing their load. The first few droplets splash against the window glass. I shake my head. "I took the day off."

Her soft, bare breasts press against my back as she wraps her arms more snugly around me. I groan. We've made love hundreds of times, yet every time she touches me it's like the first time all over again. "Then come back to bed," she murmurs, clearly only half awake.

Katniss strips away my pyjama bottoms before she pulls me into the comfort of rumpled, sleep-warm sheets. That too is something I'll never tire of, that she wants nothing between us in bed. It took some time for us to get comfortable enough with each other to bare our bodies. Our scars, my leg, the marks of the people and things that hurt us and changed us irrevocably. It took a while to understand that those marks weren't repulsive. That they are part of who we are, symbols of our resilience, in a way. Maybe even something to be proud of, in the sanctity of our bedroom.

She curls into me, head on my chest, over my heart, and falls rapidly back into slumber. Lulled by her warmth, by her slow even breaths fluttering across my skin, and the delicate patter of rain on the window panes, I join her.

When I again awaken it's even darker in our room, and rain drums insistently against the windows and roof. The staccato sound isn't what woke me though.

Soft lips and calloused fingertips traverse tickling trails across my torso, raising goosebumps in their wake.

That's not the only thing rising.

"Good morning, sleepyhead," she murmurs when she sees me watching her, then slides up my body to nuzzle my throat.

"It is now," I smile, kissing her just lightly. This kind of lazing in bed is rare now, with all of the time I spend at the bakery. But it's a luxury I have missed, the feeling of being snug and safe together in our nest of pillows and sheets.

Wandering hands and lips caress, gradually become more insistent. We make love slowly, languidly. Drawing out our pleasure. Enjoying the decadence of a day with no plans, no responsibilities, with nothing pressing on my mind except her, Katniss, writhing and mewling beneath me.

And after, we lie forehead to forehead, sweat-slick bodies cooling in the fresh air that flows through our open window, hands clasped between us. It isn't always like this. Sometimes sex is frantic, sometimes it's tinged with anger. Sometimes it's an escape when the world is too heavy. But sometimes, when our bodies and souls come together, when we move and think and breathe as one, it's transcendent.

"So why are you home, anyway?" she asks when our heart rates have returned to normal, her voice hoarse in a way that fills me with pride. But I sigh, a melancholy little noise in the dim.

"I wanted to spend the day with you." Her smile widens, genuine delight painting her beautiful features. Katniss is remarkably easy to please, a fact I'd never have guessed when we were younger. "I planned on taking you for a picnic by the lake," I tell her, and there's a note of sadness in my voice. "I packed everything last night. But…"

"We can still picnic," she says. "Right here, in bed." And though the urge to scoff is there, I find myself instead padding through the house, gathering my hidden cache of goodies.

When I return, she's lit candles, scattered them over the dresser and windowsill. She's still gloriously naked, the bedding piled around her like a cocoon. Her eyes twinkle as she holds the blankets open for me to join her.

She finds the chocolate first, of course, moaning as each piece melts slowly on her tongue. We sip wine and talk about nothing, and it feels so good.

After a while, I pull out bread, slather slices with creamy goat cheese. She watches me with an odd expression as she slices a crisp green apple, placing perfect rounds atop each piece of bread.

The memory hits me hard and fast, makes me stop what I'm doing, clamp my eyes tightly shut and breathe slowly. Deeply. Search the mental images for shiny edges. But there are none. "We've… done this before," I ask, hesitantly. "Real or not real?"

"Real, sort of," she says with a soft smile. "Our first games. In the cave."

We talk about the games occasionally as she helps me reconstruct the memories that were tainted or stolen altogether. But this feels different.

It's as if she's reading my thoughts. "We were happy then, for a few hours," she says. "In the middle of that hell."

"You were?" It's a careful question; asking about Katniss's motivations in those first games sometimes triggers her flight reflex. But she smiles.

"Yeah. We… we were so close then. You and me." Her head settles on my shoulder, my arms envelop her. With the steady drumming of the rain, and the strong, fatty cheese on my palate, it really is a warmer, safer version of how I remember the cave.

And I grin.

A memory that two years ago might have turned me into a mutt. A discussion that two months ago might have sent her scurrying for the woods. Instead, we're both here, together. Smiling.

We'll never completely recover from the horrors we've seen. But on a rainy morning in our nest of rumpled sheets and breadcrumbs, life is good again.


End file.
